How about 35 million!

February 21, 2004

A 5-year-old boy who suffered a severe brain injury during birth while his mother's attending anesthesiologist was allegedly in the company of a hospital nurse was awarded $35 million in a record settlement Friday.

The settlement was ordered Friday by Judge Dennis Burke in Cook County Circuit Court on the advice of a court-appointed guardian for the child, Andrew "A.J." Arkebauer. Arguments in the three-week trial had ended a day earlier, and the jury had just begun deliberations when the settlement was announced.

"We're relieved to know that A.J. will be taken care of even when we're gone," his mother, Evelyn Arkebauer, said. "It gives us tremendous peace of mind not to have to worry about him when we're not here."

Friday's decision was Illinois' largest settlement or award in a lawsuit involving a brain injury at birth, said John Kirkton, editor of the Jury Verdict Reporter. "This is a huge medical malpractice settlement. Thirty-five million dollars is substantially higher than any other brain-injury-at-birth case," he said.

The child's injuries were sustained as doctors performed an emergency Caesarean section delivery at Northwestern Memorial Hospital on the evening of Oct. 4, 1998. Evelyn Arkebauer arrived at the hospital that morning experiencing labor pains.

But by the evening, after spending all day in a hospital birthing room she still had not given birth.

Just before 8 p.m., Dr. Stanley Friedell, Arkebauer's obstetrician ordered a Caesarean section and paged Dr. Edwin Lojeski, a senior attending anesthesiologist, according to Kevin Burke, an attorney for the Arkebauer family. Lojeski did not respond to that first page or a second, according to Burke. At 8:30, after having been paged a third time, Lojeski answered that he was on his way, but he did not arrive at the fifth-floor operating room until after 8:45 p.m.

Attorneys for the Arkebauer family said that an off-duty nurse testified she was alone with Lojeski in a private call room one floor below the operating room when he was being paged.

By the time Lojeski arrived at the operating room, Arkebauer's child was in fetal distress, the family said.

Andrew Arkebauer survived the birth, although Evelyn Arkebauer suffered a ruptured uterus. But her son cannot walk, talk or feed himself and will require full-time care for the rest of his life, the Arkebauers said.


-- Modified on 2/22/2004 8:20:27 AM